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22 February 2019

Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.

Janelle Monáe: Impressive head protection, but not good enough to protect her from a torpedo fired from a Holter-made submarine

The week in ADM

Michael Palmer reflects on the week's action in the ADM chart

Julia Holter just will not quit! Like
Al Pacino at the end of Scarface, or Stone
Cold Steve Austin at Wrestlemania 13, she's going to hold
on to her top spot until she drops. And, like those two, it's
becoming rather endearing.

While changes at the top are fun and exciting, Holter's
stubbornness and refusal to give up is getting the fans on her
side. Can she hold on, against the odds, until her six weeks are
up? Can she last, un-toppled, until her time on this Chart must
come to an end, like all albums before her, and all future albums
to come?

Former Chart Topper Janelle Monáe barged in at
the beginning of the week and gave Holter a real scare: 10s from
The Evening Standard and Daily Telegraph, 9s (or over) from The
405, Sputnik, Paste, The Line Of Best Fit, Pop Matters along with
more 8s than you can count. But, like a torpedo fired from a
Holter-made submarine, SMASH - a 4 from State. "From start to
finish, The Electric Lady feels like a missed opportunity." Out of
nowhere! That takes her average to an 8.1, a point behind Julia
Holter and into third in our chart.

The second highest new album comes from Elvis Costello and
The Roots, not quite troubling the battle at the top. A 10
from Daily Telegraph balanced by a 6 from Uncut works out as a 7.7
average. Drowned in Sound call it "The combination of one of
England's great lyricists and production from arguably America's
most forward-thinking band." Uncut seem unhappy that it's
"constantly recycling words and musical motifs from his back
catalogue." If he recycles his lines from Austin Powers: The Spy
Who Shagged Me he gets a 10 from us.

There were plenty goings on down at the foul-smelling end of our
chart too, with three new albums on our dreaded page 4. Firstly,
Foxygen guitarist Jonathan Rado
releases a solo album to a 5.9, despite Paste awarding an 8.9. They
call it "the perfect Indian-summer morning garage sale soundtrack
album", which means it's brilliant to listen to if you want to
spend your Sunday buying a VHS copy of ET before realising that you
don't have a VHS player anymore and even though you've already
spent almost a pound on the tape it's definitely not worth going
back and buying the guy's VHS player because you could probably
just stream it online somewhere anyway.

Below Rado, we have MGMT. NME, Uncut and musicOMH
seem pleased with the Brooklyn duo's third album, but Clash call it
"amateurish psych-rock, constantly veering from wan and pallid to a
heavy, soupy mess". It nets them an average of 5.6, but now they
know that "wan" means colourless or weak, apparently. Every cloud
and all that.

And down at the very bottom, at depths so deep you'll need an
oxygen tank and a scuba license lie Pixies. They
released a four-track EP this week, their first new music since
2004, and its rating puts them bottom of the Current Chart, page
127 of the All-Time Chart, and the same score as
will.i.am. Once more: Pixies have the same rating
as will.i.am. The Line Of Best Fit are the most optimistic, saying
"three out of the four songs are at least enjoyable, one of them an
absolute blinder", but Pitchfork call it "a minor tragedy that it
was released". They also awarded their worst star-rating of ADM's
existence, giving it only 1.0.

Elsewhere: Some highly rated new albums with Summer
Camp, Lanterns on the Lake, Manic
Street Preachers,Willis Earl Beal,
Joanna Gruesome, Delorean and
Body/Head all scoring more than 7 this week, and
the new album from Elton John also gets a 6.7